Choosing your market niche
By Mikal E. Belicove: Director, Community & Education - Doba
If you and I were to decide to go into business together, and we chose to open up a brick and mortar store on Main Street, there's no way we'd sign an 18-month lease, order display furnishings, install carpet, hook up a phone line, and hire employees without first knowing what we're going to sell. Yet, online retailers--or, more accurately, casual sellers who want to become successful online retailers--do it every day.
Without giving much thought to a company name, product line, or business or marketing plan, new online sellers sign up for services like Doba, work with a third-party vendor to build a webstore, and only then get around to asking, "Hey, what should I sell?" They head to eBay, see what is selling, and then decide to sell the same products--usually consumer electronics--for slightly less than the competition. They end up being disappointed, mainly because their profit margins are so low.
Entrepreneurial Marketing: Getting Noticed on eBay and Beyond
by Stuart Lisonbee, Doba Education Specialist
Search for a product on eBay or any number of other online marketplaces, and you're likely to find yourself inundated with product listings that look pretty much the same. All things being equal, you're going to click the item offering the lowest price, right? Or maybe you weigh price and trustworthiness, and you order the product from the big-name retailer that offers the lowest price. After all, when prices are comparable, why would you risk ordering from an unknown merchant?
It's tough to admit, but that's pretty much how online shoppers arrive at their purchase decisions. To encourage shoppers to break that routine, give them a reason to buy from you. Reach out to them to attract their business, brand yourself as the product expert, and prove to customers that you're as reputable as the Amazon's and Wal-Mart's of the world. This article shows you how to take an entrepreneurial approach to marketing—to pursue business rather than waiting for it to come to you.
Giving yourself a corporate makeover
People prefer to buy products from a company rather than from an individual, so the more you can make yourself look like a legitimate business, the better chance you have of attracting new customers. To give you a more professional look and feel...
The Benefits of Tax ID Numbers and How to Get One
By Mikal E. Belicove, Director - Community & Education, Doba
The IRS doesn't require certain small businesses to have a TIN (Tax Identification Number), but more and more businesses, some of which you may want to do business with, require a TIN.
What is a TIN or EIN?
A TIN is like an SSN (Social Security Number) for businesses. It identifies your business entity to the IRS and to any businesses or individuals who may want to do business with you. Like an SSN, a TIN is nine digits, but the nine digits are arranged a little differently. Instead of appearing as 000-00-0000, a TIN appears as 00-0000000.
The IRS officially refers to the TIN as the EIN (short for Employee Identification Number), because the number was originally intended and is still primarily used by companies who must process payroll taxes for employees. The number is usually referred to as a TIN when used to identify a business and as an EIN when used to report employment taxes, but TIN and EIN are just different names for the same thing.
Do I need a TIN?
Depending on how you've structured your business and whether you have employees on your payroll...Read More
Building Customer Loyalty with an eNewsletter
by Stuart Lisonbee, Doba Education Specialist
A well-designed eNewsletter, packed with valuable content and exclusive offers, can help you walk the fine line of keeping in touch with your customers without annoying them.
In this article, you learn:
How to design an attractive eNewsletter that increases your brand presence.
What to include in your eNewsletter and what to leave out.
How to encourage customers to subscribe without being pushy.
How to automate distribution to save valuable time.
Designing an attractive eNewsletter
Whenever you contact a customer, you have an opportunity to impress or disappoint, so you want your first attempt at an eNewsletter to be impressive. In any publication, your first impression hinges on...
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Reunions have been part of the western culture for many generations. Not much has changed with this popular ritual - until now. Reunions can now be enhanced with easy to build websites that act as a communications hub before and after the reunion. They are ideal for family reunions, class reunions or military reunions because all the information, pictures and stories can be shared by people coming to the reunion as well as family and friends around the world that could not make it. The Internet has helped family members and classmates find each other after all those years and now a company has created a way to make the event a guaranteed success. Myevent.com has developed a service that allows anyone to create a reunion website with no technical skills whatsoever. The person simply fills in forms online and the information is fed through a database into beautiful design templates. Lauren Taylor created a website for her high school's 20th reunion on Myevent.com and she was thrilled with the results. "There are incredible features that allow information and pictures to be shared by the people coming to the reunion as well as those who could not make it. It was great to have a place to post all of the details of events. It eliminated a lot of questions people had when we planned our last reunion 10 years ago”. “Everyone RSVP'd on the website which also made my job easier. The Planning tools allowed us to send email invitations and to plan and track all the events around the reunion. People were even able to pay for their tickets with a credit card right on our website, which was much easier than collecting checks from everyone”. Lauren's classmates enjoyed the website as much as she did for many other reasons. "There is a great poll and quiz that we changed every week because we knew people were coming back to visit the website and see any changes I made. Another thing people really liked was the flashback page that we created with all of the events in pop culture from 20 years ago" she said. Lauren said the most popular page on the website was the "Then and Now" page which showed each classmate in their graduation picture as well as a picture of them today, along with a blurb about where they are in life now. According to her, it allowed everyone to catch up before the reunion even began. Everyone was able to send their information, and pictures right through the website, so it was easy to get everyone's pictures and comments. "The guest book was extremely popular as well and was signed by almost everyone whether they were coming to the reunion or not. Many people moved away and could not make the trip for the reunion and the website allowed them to feel part of the event as well. Everyone appreciated seeing the pictures and a video clip of the reunion which Lauren posted immediately following the event. "When I first thought about creating a website for our reunion I was a bit nervous because I had no technical skills whatsoever. But I can tell you that using Myevent.com was SO EASY, I didn't need to know any special computer skills at all. I just filled in forms with our information and clicked on submit buttons and their system handled the rest. I was able to try the website for free for 7 days before having to pay the $99 cost for 12 months, but after 5 minutes I knew this was exactly what we needed". Myevent.com websites are ideal for any kind of reunion including Family Reunions, Class Reunions, and Military Reunions.
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